Gen Con brought a lot of big announcements for Dungeons and Dragons, so it was no surprise to see an update on Wizards of the Coast’s next licensed videogame, Warlock. It was a bit more surprising to see Maggie Robertson, last seen playing bloodthirsty changeling Orin the Red in Baldur’s Gate 3, return to the Forgotten Realms for another role.
Robertson is officially playing Tasha, one of D&D’s most famous and fearsome mages. The Archfey Witch Queen plays a fickle patron to the videogame’s lead spellcaster.
As it happened, Robertson was at Gen Con, both to reveal her role and get involved with some live actual play. Wargamer caught up with her not long after the big announcement.
She tells us she’s “very excited” that the word (or hideous laughter) is out in the world. “It’s so rare I get to talk about a project before it’s actually come out”, she adds.
Robertson is “in the thick” of production on Warlock, so she can’t reveal too much. She can, however, tell us more about what draws her to a figure like Tasha.
“I like characters that are complex”, she says. “She’s not quite an antihero, but she’s neither good nor bad, and I think that makes her a very fascinating character.”
“She’s very charming and cunning”, Robertson says, “and all of that makes her really dangerous”. “She’s so smart – she knows how to wrap you around her finger and get you to do whatever she wants.”
Robertson wasn’t a regular D&D player before BG3, but she was the kind of person to read “every book that had a dragon on it”. “All my friends would make fun of me”, she adds, “but then Game of Thrones came out, and they started reading dragon books. I was like ‘You dirty rat! I was doing this for years!'”
Now, Robertson has a regular home game (where she plays the “disgusting” Oggie Ogglesworth, a Dwarf Bard with “the unwarranted audacity of a white man”). She’s also appeared in several live one-shots alongside actual play stars.
Three of these have been sessions of The Puppy Roll, Anjali Bhimani’s charity game where actors play as their pets to raise money for the charity Petco Love. The first two were livestreamed online, but the last – which took place at this year’s Gen Con – was Robertson’s first in front of a live audience.
She tells Wargamer she still feels “quite new” to D&D, but “I really like it”. “I find it quite liberating, similar to videogames.” “What I love about videogames is that the way you look doesn’t matter”, she explains. “You can play any character you want as long as you can imagine it – the same applies to D&D.”
Apparently, her go-to D&D character is always “the most chaotic possible”. “I like to sow chaos wherever I go.” “That part of Orin especially is a bit of me, but I’d like to think I’m chaotic good and Orin is chaotic evil.”
Shows like The Puppy Roll give Robertson a unique new acting challenge. “You can prep a little bit, but you have to go in and vibe it out”, she says. “There’s so much happening and you have to toe the line between ‘how can I be a good party member to serve the story, and let the DM do their job, and also be funny and entertaining and crack jokes, and give room for everybody else at the table to do their thing’.”
The show also gave her three live puppies. She says she “really almost went home with” her adoptable co-stars. Petco Love raises money to help rescue missing pets and get homeless ones adopted.
Robertson can definitely see herself in a full actual play campaign one day. She also sees more acting in her future, both on-camera and motion performance – and maybe some behind-the-scenes leadership.
When asked about her ambitions, Robertson tells us “I’m wondering if there’s some behind-the-scenes stuff I want to get involved with in terms of the creation of things and having a little bit more ownership of making things happen”.
“That’s one of the beautiful things that Resident Evil and Baldur’s Gate – and hopefully next up Warlock – has given me.” “They’ve given me a platform that I can mobilize to put projects I want to create out into the world”, she says.
Want to hear more of Robertson’s takes? I was in a writing duel with my counterpart over at sister-site PCGamesN to see which of us could get our interview online first – it’s either up on their site already, or I won the duel! Or you can chat about the game in the Dungeons and Dragons channel of the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
